Posted by sam on February 25, 2000 at 09:50:55:
In Reply to: what's up with orchestral playing? posted by ken k on February 24, 2000 at 23:28:37:
Well, I thought I'd chime in on this one. As a college student, I do spend some time learning orchestral excerpts. Looking at it from that stand point, when that major orchestral spot opens, I, like the rest of my collegues will be ready to go for it. We won't need to learn the piece, only refine it a little. Therefore, the time spent in college learning those excerpts will or should pay off when we win that nice 5-6 digit principal tuba chair in fill in the orchestra here. Yes, it will be only one lucky individual, but I would like to think it would be me. Although, not a great deal of time is spent on orchestral excerpts, at least for me and a few other friends of mine. We have been looking at band excerpts in more detail, hence the 2 major military band auditions at the end of March. Still, they don't take up THAT much time either. The practicing that takes up the most time, especially for me, is fundamentals. If I can articulate the "correct" way and use air efficiently and have an incredible sense of pitch and rhythm, those excerpts will come very easily. After fundamentals comes solo work, yeah, I know, solo tuba.....but like Harvey Phillips says, we need to keep pushing the envelope. Solo work encompasses alot of time in the practice session as well. Here is a good way to see if all the time spent on fundamentals wears off. Then comes the excerpts. Given the average person in my studio practices between 4-5 hours. I feel the break down is as follows. A good 30-45 minute warm-up of long tones, articulations excercises and breathing excercises. Then 20 minutes reading some Bordogni/Rochut. Then 20-30 minutes of Kopprasch (sp.?) and Tyrell. 10-15 minutes of Blazhevich. Then a 15 minute rest. Orchestral excerpts on CC. Probably Mahler 5, Prok. 5, Fountains of Rome and the Ride. Along with a few other biggies. probably a good hour spent on orchestral excerpts. 15 minute rest. warm up on F tuba. Go through same sort of fundamental excercises spent on CC tuba so, another good hour on fundamentals on F. Then a solo on F. Right now for me I'm blowing through the Marcello in F sonata. A good 30min to and hour on that. Then orchestral excerpts on F like Hungarian March and Symphonie Fantastique. Sorry for the long post, but I'm killing time between wash loads. :-)